Nothing Dries Up Panties Faster Than A Man With Bad Grammar

September 27th, 2012 - By Renay Alize

Source: Thinkstock.com

It’s amazing the stuff we’ll endure in the quest to find what Mary was singing about all those years ago: “Real Love.” Even when we know with every fiber of our being that this beau isn’t the right one; some of us are so…thirsty for attention, affection or infatuation, that we end up putting up with things we could never have imagined, adopting friends like “Ignore” and “Rationalize.”

We all have that friend who consistently finds herself involved with men who are not about the right. My friend like that is the reigning Queen of rationalization and searching for the good in men…in cases where the good just ain’t there. A couple of months ago, she found herself infatuated with a tall, chocolatey, former football player/father of one.

Initially, he came off as a decent dude. Before their first date, they seemed to have quite a bit in common and he didn’t let her love of Harry Potter deter him from taking her out on a proper date. But the more they corresponded, she started to notice a pattern.

The brotha had terrible grammar.

He played football in college, so he met some type of educational requirements at one point or another. He even graduated. So why couldn’t he seem to construct a sentence free of spelling and grammatical errors? The thrill was starting to fade away. And I knew things were going  from bad to worse when my friend texted me with a rhetorical question/cry for help.

“Does MN need a guest post…’grammar is standing in between me and my boo’? lol”

Man! I knew immediately, where my friend was coming from. In college, I too found myself attracted to someone who, though he once taught middle school history, admitted that he always misspells words and always will. Yikes! (This is why our schools are in such a disarray.)

By now, some of you are thinking I’m some type of elitist. I know in my heart that no one is capable of avoiding the occasional typo every now and then. I know that some really good writers also happen to be terrible spellers. Even we here at Madame Noire are not above a slip up here and there. (Some of you have kindly…or rudely let us know.) My own mother, thanks to a subpar educational system in the ’50′s and ’60′s, misspells words she should definitely know. But whether it’s right or wrong, as a person who writes for a living and values words and the sanctity of grammatical rules, reading a message riddled with mistakes is not only distracting; but when I’ve just met someone, it immediately makes me question their intelligence. I know that’s probably a prejudice I need to work on; but when I’m in the “new” phase I’m constantly looking for the “stop” sign.

Bad grammar might not be a stop sign, but for me, and a couple of other learned women, it’s at least a “proceed with caution.”

So, I’m not saying bad grammar warrants an immediate dismissal. On the contrary, if everything else lines up and the person demonstrates their intelligence in other ways, despite the sentence struggles, then you should give them a chance. But as was the case with my friend and the chocolatey one, the bad grammar was just the tip of the iceberg. Maybe she could have worked with the terrible grammar had there not been an unflattering, premature package pic and a hidden girlfriend.

Ladies, now is your time to sound off. Does bad grammar bother you or is it something you can work with?

 

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  • CarlaKah

    It definitely does!!! If he doesn’t understand grammar, how the hell will he show our future kids how to write and speak? What if I die and he is the ONLY caretaker? Nope, Jesus doesn’t want me to abuse my blessings like that!

  • Kayo Halana Malie

    Poor grammar does bother me, especially when I have to read something several times or ask someone to repeat themselves because their poor grammar distorts what it being said.

  • CharmW

    I thought it was just me *BIG SIGH* Misspelled words and bad grammar definitely earn no points with me. If you dropped out of school in the 9th grade, hell, use spell check, a least try to put some effort into what you’re typing or writing.

  • bay220

    It’s so unattractive.

  • mia

    TO ME: being a writer & lover of learning, it absolutely bugs me when someone can’t spell or uses bad grammar 24/7. I once talked to a guy who I was having a text conversation with, no bells in whistles, just normal writing, and he responds you are so sophisticated. TURN OFF!

  • chanela

    it pisses me off how people do it so much on facebook or on blogsites and then complain “it’s just the internet i hate when people judge grammar! it’s not an engilsh class” but guess what? those SAME folks are the ones who are post memos or signs up on their job and spell it all kinds of wrong! SMH people wonder why their job resumes aren’t doing the trick for their job. people wonder why they aren’t getting accepted into colleges. they can’t spell!

    the part is that they STAY on facebook and other internet sites. if you aren’t sure of a how to spell a word (you should know at least how the correct word LOOKS) the look the word up on google to be sure before you embarrass yourself! SMH not that hard

  • WhyDoIDoThisToMyself

    I didn’t even read this article. I need not. For anyone wondering why I phrased my previous sentence as such; it is undoubtedly deliberate that I select the most formal of verbiage to make my point. As a human being who has to check ‘african american’ on most applications (`guess our ol’ Census Bureau just don’t know how to categorize multi-ethnic individuals yet)—-most of ‘my people’ make me mad that I gotta. Why? Cuz when I speak in a way like what I wrote like above, I get ever-the-uproar from MY OWN FOLKS! For all the elementary-schoolisms called ‘comments’….I’m challenging those who are guilty of giving MORE grief to an articulate “Black” person than anyone frontin under the comforting and anonymous cloak of an internet surname (PLEASE know what ‘surname’ means!) to address THAT. “Shall we?” (I know how many would just like to call me a *i*ch, but ‘there-there now! mind your manners!)

  • Diamond

    My ex boyfriend graduated from Grambling and he mispelled and used bad grammar. It turned me off and annoyed me (and I let him know) but I overlooked it. And he was a complete jerk! Immature, MADE me pay for dates (leaving his wallet in the car and other lame ways to make me pay) and just had no class. Also, from other previous experiences with guys who were this way, they just were not serious. They were immature game players. There is 1 man I briefly dated after that and a man I am seeing now who uses correct spelling and punctuation at all times. And they are absolutely wonderful. Respectful, chivalrous, sweet and overall just more mature. Just thought I’d share my experience :)

  • Cinnamon71

    Amen! Stop talking like Eddie Murphy’s rendition of Buckwheat! It reminds me of nails going across a chalkboard!

  • MissRae

    A guy messaged me recently saying, “When you gonna be all minds?” I DIED. My major is ENGLISH EDUCATION. He should’ve known better! Lol.

    • CJD

      At least you weren’t texted “was up”. First time I saw that, I thought he was joking. But, he kept texting it everyday. What happend to (h), (t), (‘), and (?)? I wish I still had the poem he wrote me.
      Rule #72.
      Don’t write a poet poetry.
      Rule #72.5
      Don’t write a poet poetry with poor spelling, grammar, punctuation, and usage.
      *sigh*

  • get real

    @6485f73af821547eb8f2b25b2af88e5b:disqus.. Only young people text and Facebook like that but I totally understand were you women are coming from. I was kicking it with this chick and asked her ” so why don’t you have a significant other”? And I kid you you not she said ” Uh oh , Big words” Lmao. And you better believe that was the last I saw her. I could’ve tapped it but that turned me clean off.

  • Old School

    I’m trying to do better – trying not to judge – because using bad grammar will not stop anyone from gaining God’s kingdom but please. Just please. Someone tell me the difference between an accent and poor diction, bad grammar and flavor?

    Conjugate a verb why don’t you? He does, she does, their house, instead of he do, she do, they house.

    • chanela

      i don’t care! i AM gonna judge! there is no excuse for an adult who runs around all day long saying ” i’m grown!” to be spelling like their 1 year old! all they have to do it open another tab to get to google and check the spelling. or use the right click to select the correct word.

      people need to stop excusing fuckery by puling the “judgement ” card!

    • Kayo Halana Malie

      I think that sometimes an accent and poor diction go hand-in-hand, but sometimes it does not.

  • Candacey Doris

    I can understand if a man has bad grammar or bad spelling. But we know you have a spell check on your phone, computer, and tablet. Use it! I should not be getting messages that say “Yo waz ur nam? I got dat gud sh!t” If I get one more message asking me to “get at me” I’ll scream.

  • http://twitter.com/GStylFire ReGina Crawford

    If I feel like a need a secret decoder ring to decipher your message before I can read it – BIG TURN OFF! If you can’t stimulate my mind (in a good way), then you can’t stimulate anything else!

  • Mel

    I hope it doesn’t come off as elitist, because we ALL make mistakes. However, I met a guy in college who I thought was a pretty nice guy. But once we started talking on the phone, I noticed this entire persona taking shape. He would use words like “the crib-o”, very seriously. “When you swanging by the crib-o”?

    Even though I listened to my hip hop like everyone else, I realized that I could probably not date someone who invited me over to their crib-o. It just sounds different on wax than in person.

  • thirtythoughts

    *dead* at the title alone!! It’s so true!

  • RJA

    Bad grammar irks my soul!!! I try to be patient w/ people b/c I’m an excellent speller and no matter who I’m with I get treated like a human thesaurus/dictionary, family and friends included. So I kinda look at like that’s one of the “things” I bring to a realtionship :)

  • Miss Rae

    So… I assume the guy with bad grammar must be Tyrese

  • NaturalJem

    That is a serious pet peeve of mine as much as I want to laugh in the dude’s face I can’t help but feel sorry for them…but I do laugh behind their back lol

  • Morena

    It ANNOYS the stew outta me & I cringe as I read some people’s posts on the social netwoking sites. If I have to read it in slow mo to gain clarity, I am MAD…lol! It absolutely allows you to realize who payed attention in English class back in the day! There is NOTHING worse than a person who appears to have it all together and then you receive a series of text messages that cause you to question what’s really good. ANNOYANCE to the 25th power!!! I have zero patience for those who do not understand that there is a very real difference between the words your & you’re, there, they’re & their, know & no, to & too, then & than, where & were and that IRREGARDLESS, CONVERSATE & MA (as in MY), are not mickey fickey WORDS! And, lets not talk about the str8 up ebonics that Sabrina indicated…INSTANT PANTIES IN A BUNCH! HOOKED ON PHONICS 4 the WORLD! It’s never too late… :)

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